I don't think Ryan was a liability. Romney hiding Ryan was not good though. The part about Mitt McCain never attacking Romney and being Mr. Nice Guy is right on the money. You fight fire with fire. Something that only Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin seem to understand as republicans.

Ryan was a mistake. He spearheaded an attack on Medicare. I think Medicare needs to be abolished along with Social Security, but in the real world, Medicare is the Third Rail. Touch it and you die. In essence, Romney’s campaign took on Bush’s baggage from suggesting Social Security privatization *before* even winning an election. I’d argue that the 2006 election wipeout was a direct consequence of Bush’s bright idea.

4
posted on 11/07/2012 4:59:51 PM PST
by Zhang Fei
(Let us pray that peace be now restored to the world and that God will preserve it always.)

STENCH FROM THE TRENCH. 14,000,000 fewer voters this election than in 2008. But nearly every report I read from people voting talked about LARGE CROWDS, LONG WAITING PERIODS and THE LONGEST LINES MANY HAD EVER SEEN. Something SMELLS AWFUL FISHY because those two things don’t add up.

STENCH FROM THE TRENCH. 14,000,000 fewer voters this election than in 2008. But nearly every report I read from people voting talked about LARGE CROWDS, LONG WAITING PERIODS and THE LONGEST LINES MANY HAD EVER SEEN. Something SMELLS AWFUL FISHY because those two things dont add up.

Pure groupthink. Romney does his final event in NH in an auditorium with 10,000 capacity. He fills it up and conservatives think he's got the air of a winner. Obama fills half of a 20K arena, and conservatives think that shows he's on the way out. But both of them have roughly the same number of people in the audience.

6
posted on 11/07/2012 5:05:26 PM PST
by Zhang Fei
(Let us pray that peace be now restored to the world and that God will preserve it always.)

Romney seemingly ignored this truth by taking an ultra-hardline on immigration  one so tough he called for the "self deportation" of illegal immigrants. Not only is such a plan impractical and immoral, it is unacceptable politically, as yesterdays' results proved. 1. Latinos like the welfare state. It is part culture and part socio-economic status. Cubans are the exception, except not so much in New Jersey. 2. What is "hard-line" about asking criminal aliens to leave? That seems awfully soft to me. Even a liberal Republican like Ike, deported illegals. You can call this political suicide if you wish, but calling "self-deportation" immoral is Cultural Marxist balderdash.

Likely because hes a heretical liberal and many sincere Christians and conservatives stayed home and answered to God and their values rather than country. And so they re-elected a radically pro-abortion heretic, Obama? Who are these seniles, inbreds, and retards?

Romney got less votes than McCain. Had he mobilized what even a moderate McCain managed to mobilize, Romney would have won. So the big story is that Romney lost because he was not able to mobilize enough of GOP base, that more GOP-leaning people got turned off and sat out this election. May be it had to do with Romney being a Mormon or not being conservative enough. A couple point shift and results could have been vastly different.

(1) We held on to most of our GOP Congressional seats. The losers lost because they were too conservative for their districts. A UPI poll indicated that 10% of evangelicals said they wouldn’t vote for a Mormon. That took him out in FL where he lost by tens of thousands of votes.

(2) Romney’s editorial about opposing the auto bailout took him out in the Rust Belt states. That was why Bush supported the bailout - a lifetime in politics taught him elementary electoral math that Romney never had the chance to learn - one of the Rust Belt states (Ohio) provided his margin of victory in both 2000 and 2004.

(3) Selecting Ryan turned off just enough people concerned about Medicare that he lost in places where he might have won, like NH and FL. Remember, we don’t get to define ourselves. Any Republican pol who mentions the words “Medicare” and “reform” in the same sentence without also mentioning the word “oppose” is pointing a loaded gun at his own head, politically-speaking.

12
posted on 11/07/2012 5:12:22 PM PST
by Zhang Fei
(Let us pray that peace be now restored to the world and that God will preserve it always.)

One way or another, this nation was becoming more corrupt in the electorate. People know the fact that the free handouts can only go so long(until the lenders feel done at an unknown time). Like any procrastinator, however, the reasoning is “just not tommorrow”. My honest assessment is that the electorate get what they were asking for, and reap the results. I personally see the very real possibility that voter fraud happened. But there has to be the point where you just say, like my little brother before burning his finger,” you’ve been warned, but have it your way.” Honest, let them have it and live a happy life as moral religious people, and offer the charity and invitations to the Grinches of society. God has a plan, and even if we lose it in the political arena, values will either make or break America in time. And we don’t depend on the success of the political system.

The Big Ears events really were sparsely attended, but the Acorns of this world knew that was not what counted. What counted was the main poll. THAT is where they patiently beat the small b bushes and got the Crowds Of Zombie Voters.

15
posted on 11/07/2012 5:20:49 PM PST
by HiTech RedNeck
(cat dog, cat dog, alone in the world is a little cat dog)

No, the Republicans have to become more diverse in order to win a Presidential election. When I saw rally after Romney rally with a backdrop of white faces, I knew it was a mistake. Republicans need to find a way to attract Hispanic and Asian voters.

If it weren’t for the Hispanic voters, Romney could have won a couple of states.

6. Poor Campaign Staff. Considering that Romney's presidential quest was the best funded Republican race in history, his campaign staff was certainly not the best money could buy. The Romney staff was insular and arrogant, and his campaign strategy team led by Stu Stevens and Russ Schriefer was simply abysmal.

Everybody knows and everybody advances and argues their pet theory. All of them perdictable, boring and cliche ridden. Mr Ruddy should have written and published the above last weekend or earlier, then it would have been brilliant.

I’ve my own theory too, which I am not advancing and won’t argue. Everybody knows the low turnout of registered Republicans, with Romney receiving fewer votes than Juan McCain 4 years ago. What ‘appened? First, I think that Peggy Noone, Michael Barone and Dick Morris were in a way correct in their last weekend’s predictions of Romney victory. Correct in that they all expected normal high Republican turnout. What ‘appened then? Oh, did I axe that already? So sorry.

Here’s my novel theory based if not on anything else then on the observations made on this very forum. The stigma of racism. The Republican voters were intimidated by it into refraining from voting. Cannot boo a lousy black stage performer, cannot not laugh at an unfunny black comic, cannot vote against a black man speaking TV anchor English (at least when he’s not addressing homies or senile old black folks who remember being ‘colored’, ‘Negro’, ‘black’, and now must accept being ‘American-African’.) In 2008 these same voters were NOT voting against Obama, since he was McCain’s equal. Now when he’s an incumbent, voting for Romney, would be, do I have to say it? RACIST! and that is a bigger crime than murder as Mark Fuhrman among others surely knows, Shirley! The stigma of “RACISM”, an invention some have argued of Leon Trotsky.

THAT is the difference. They’ve been laying the groundwork for this for about 100 years by systematically dumbing down the population and now its finally coming to fruition. It’s like Rush said today - people were voting in favor of Santa Claus and he’s hard to beat.

The Big Ears events really were sparsely attended, but the Acorns of this world knew that was not what counted. What counted was the main poll. THAT is where they patiently beat the small b bushes and got the Crowds Of Zombie Voters.

That was Romney's fault for having no ground game. With $1b at his disposal, he's got no excuse. Obama got 1.5m fewer votes than Bush in 2004. Freepers have also said that Romney had no ground game - Obama had paid staffers doing GOTV whereas Romney used volunteers exclusively. He should have hired Rove, the GOTV expert, as a consultant. I guess he's used to knowing everything. Sometimes being too smart is a handicap. Romney not only wanted to win, he wanted to win his way - via ad blitzes. If he had done it Rove's way, he would have won. One thing GWB had going for him was humility - not the kind where you say you are humble, but actually defer to the experts. (Of course, given GWB's sparse resume - while far superior to Gore's, Kerry's or Obama's - he had much to be humble about, relative to GHWB).

23
posted on 11/07/2012 5:27:48 PM PST
by Zhang Fei
(Let us pray that peace be now restored to the world and that God will preserve it always.)

Bramps: Likely because hes a heretical liberal and many sincere Christians and conservatives stayed home and answered to God and their values rather than country.

rmlew: And so they re-elected a radically pro-abortion heretic, Obama? Who are these seniles, inbreds, and retards?

No, the seniles, inbreds, and retards are the ones who fail to grasp that you get what you vote for. The only folks who re-elected Obama were Democrats and imaginary voters of fraud.

Saying that those who declined to vote for Romney re-elected Obama, is crybaby crap. The only people who re-elected Obama are the folks who voted for him, and a whole lotta them were ficticious or manufactured votes.

And they've got Republicans to the point of erroniously holding the majority of their fellow Americans in contempt for being "children" who elected "Santa Claus." The minority has the majority convinced it's powerless.

If Democrats are cheating to the degree that it seems apparent, then it means they have to generate those votes because we outnumber them.

But hey, Rush et al, you go on ahead and tell America and the world that the majority of the people with whom you share this country are that stupid, and just brush off the whole stolen election angle. If elections had been honest for the past 20 years, liberals would be much weaker.

All those vulnerabilities in Obama that Europe and the rest of the world are salivating over -- why aren't Obama's challengers in the U.S. also salivating? Because they're conditioned to cringing in fear?

Evidence abounds around us that the majority of Americans are good, smart, responsible people, if poorly informed and educated. Berating them as "children" is for the birds.

That's a pretty interesting theory. Certainly, Romney was actually a vote "against," as neither side would be inclined to vote for him; for liberals, he's a dread Republican, and for non-political-junkie limited government Americans and conservatives, he's a functional liberal Democrat. So pretty much any vote cast his way would be done to vote *against* Obama.

*sigh* Isn't it about time to go OFFENSE???

Really interesting point you make, R Cat. Probably spot on in many cases.

The reason Mitt lost is because he was campaigning on jobs while what the electorate wanted was welfare. It really is as simple as that. The contrasts between the radical socialist and the moderate were stark. Yet when they had the chance, the voting public chose radical socialism.

I’m surprised no one has mentioned the mainstream media (MSM) as a major factor in this election. You can’t claim that their bias was not a major factor, can you? They whitewashed/ignored Behngazi, the FEMA response to Sandy, and Fast and Furious. And these were only the most recent examples.

I suspect you are describing a real phenomenon. There is a reason that racial preferences for blacks don't usually attract much in the way of strongly argued conservative opposition. We oppose racial preferences, but are relieved when the subject is changed. Pressing the RACISM button doesn't make conservatives jump like it used to, but it still makes some of us uncomfortable.

One thing I like about your theory is that it leaves us some hope that this is still basically a center-right country. So does my preferred theory of the reason for the disaster, though mine is much less original:

Take a look at the electoral map from yesterday. You’ll see a big chunk of America still exists, although it’s shrinking over time. The problem America is trying to drag Sodom along for the ride when Sodom clearly doesn’t want to.

Y’know, at a certain point Lot had to decide to follow God and let Sodom meet it’s fate.

Ultimately I think this ends in divorce. Perhaps before but more likely after. Take a look at the electoral map from last night and then take look at a map of the US/CSA circa 1862. Nothing much has changed.

How else can we explain the low turnout of Republicans? Id like to hear.

Well, since you ask *ahem* ;^) --

I think it's because they didn't have anything to turn out for. Only "against."

I'm floored at how many FReepers still think Romney was just fine, okay, a "good man," would have made "good president." It is wholly baffling.

The low Republican turnout may really be so dirt simple as this: More Republicans than anybody thought were of the same mind as Jim Robinson once was: Screw Romney and the donkey he rode in on. What's the point of being a Republican, if your candidate's political career has been that of a functioning, highly competent liberal Democrat?

You'd hope and think they'd at least have shown up at the polls to vote down-ticket, but I can see the temptation to just blow the whole thing off. Maybe that's what happened.

One thing stood out in that link. Of those who didn’t know Romney’s religious faith in June, 29% said they wouldn’t vote for a Mormon.

Has this poll been taken with regards to Buddhists, Hindus and Mohammedans. Of course they’ve voted one of the latter ones into office not knowing he is a Muslim, and I suspect would have, had they known, only because he is a saintly ‘African-American’.

I looked on my ballot for Jesus’ name, but I never saw it. “Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s.” Jesus taught us about government. He didn’t say, “Vote for me and I’ll reduce your taxes.” He was pointing out that worldly government was not his concern. It is amazing how many Christian Pharisees we have. Obama will teach you about not voting. You won’t like it.

41
posted on 11/07/2012 7:17:55 PM PST
by blueunicorn6
("A crack shot and a good dancer")

The long lines in NYC were due to evacuees being shunted to other polling places. We had eleven extra E.D.s (precincts) at my polling place and three-hour waits in line. Also, trained poll workers could not get to their places and so untrained ones seem to have been substituted, which held up the lines.

At my E.D. they were taking fifteen minutes with each person. Couldn’t find the name. Oh, let’s look again. Meanwhile, I was telling them the guy didn’t live in the district because I heard him state his address. The other worker was telling people laboriously how to use the paper ballot because “we’ve never used them before,” whereas they had been in use through three elections.

Where in my post does it say that I didn’t vote? I simply gave a theory. I’d love your answer to this Mr. or Mrs. Holier than thou since religion is no factor in your perfect world of voting:
If all you knew about two candidates was that one was a Muslim and one was a Christian, how would you vote and why?
Would you simply flip a coin or would where someone puts their faith actually matter to a ‘pharisee’ like you?

I would have all come to know the life-giving power found in Jesus’ blood. But the way is narrow. We do not have heaven on earth. But that doesn’t mean I want all to live in misery. Obama is giving us misery. He will give us four more years of misery. Your original post is judgmental. I am a Christian and I voted for Romney. If you have some scriptural reasons for wanting Obama to be our President for the next four years, then I am willing to read them. I have quoted Jesus and given what I believe to be his decision on this matter.

47
posted on 11/07/2012 9:11:11 PM PST
by blueunicorn6
("A crack shot and a good dancer")

Geez, my original post still stands. I was merely giving a theory. I am also a Christian and I voted for Romney but I would understand someone staying home (or maybe writing in a protest vote) because Romney is a heretic and a liberal (in this case including pro abortion and gay agenda). And the fact that you didn't answer my question about voting for a Muslim vs. a Christian tells me that deep down you understand my point as well. As a Mormon, Romney believes that by his deeds he can become a god. Becoming president would look pretty good on that resume. And it seems, based on his past stances, that there is no principal he wouldn't compromise to achieve that end.

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